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Eurovision 2017 In-Depth: Demy-Gravity (Greece & Cyprus)

With only three posts left to go until I’ve done them all, this time I’m going to one of Eurovision’s most famous duos, Greece and mini-Greece, er… Cyprus.

Greece – Demy – This Is Love

Greece had a big shock last year, they crashed out in the semi-finals for the first time ever. While you could argue that due to their financial woes and increased attemepts to send more and more budget Eurovision entries each year that it was only a matter of time, I was rather disappointed that it was Utopian Land, a very interesting and rousing Eastern hip-hop track with some Pontic Greek lyrics that fell foul first rather than the comparatively normal One Last Breath the year before, although from a title point of view that being their last qualifier makes more sense. Generally with Greece I love their crazy party entries more than their ballads, Utopian Land was great, Rise Up and OPA were very awesome, I was strangely addicted to Aphrodisiac too, though I never liked their winner, that was a very boring pop song for me. They’re a high quality country in Eurovision a lot of the time because Greek party culture is so different from any other country except their junior partner, and they always know how to bring the fun. Mostly.

See, This Is Love isn’t quite that fun bag that you want from Greece, although it does go back to their roots of putting a big party tune with a beautiful girl singing it, with little dance bits that remind me of Alan Walker. And it doesn’t even start like that, it starts like a normal midtempo, so this is one that has the power to surprise the viewer and never underestimate that sort of effect.

I think because of that and because it’s the sort of song that sounds good to so many people no matter what, there’s no question whether this is going through tomorrow. In the final, I think it may get Greece a fair result, maybe top 10 if they’re lucky, it’s certainly something that could surprise out of nowhere. Unlike with Utopian Land, this shouldn’t put anyone off and it’s good besides and sometimes that’s all that counts. It’s probably a little too low-key to win though.

Cyprus – Hovig – Gravity

Less reliable than Greece have been, but in recent years some Cypriot entries have really hit me, particularly last year’s light metal offering Alter Ego, my favourite entry last year for being a hugely epic rock stormer and having wolves in the videos. It qualifying was my favourite moment of last year. There’s also La La Love from 2012 that was rather notable. They don’t qualify as often as Greece by any margin and are more prone to sending inept and inessential moments that everyone forgets about. No one forgets about Greek entries.

Is this year one of them though? Yes… and no. Gravity is a fairly good pop song with a lot of synths, little instrumental sounds and a hook that has at least some semblance of catchiness to it. I like it and it’s fairly good. But the problem is that it’s also quite forgettable, Hovig is not the most m emorable singer and the song probably won’t stick in many people’s minds. Unless they have a good stage show and Cyprus have never really splurged on outlandish stage shows to my knowledge, they tend to operate without that.

For those reasons, though I like it, I don’t think this is qualifying and while I don’t think this is a poor effort of an entry, there’s too much else going on in semi 1 for the Cypriots to sneak through.